Racism is alive and well in Lake Highlands

I remember when AMC wanted to locate its very first theater in Dallas. The site chosen (actually chosen for AMC by former Dallas Mayor Steve Bartlett and other city officials) was the strip mall located at Forest Lane and Inwood that's now occupied mostly by a Lowe's. Back then it was a long-ago-abandoned K-Mart.

Residents in the area were in a uproar and protested mightily. I remember being at the center one day and talking to the one of the sign-carrying protesters and asking him what he had against locating a movie theater there.

"It attracts the wrong kind of people," he said.

"What kind?" I wanted to know.

"You, know," he said as if I should be aware of the conspiracy. "Those kind."

"You mean movie-going kind of people?" I said, getting agitated by his overt racial overtones. "You mean people like me, because I love to go to the movies."

"Oh, no, no," he replied. "Not you. Those kind."

To make a long story somewhat shorter, those white racists won the battle -- the city illegally denied AMC a permit to locate its theater there -- although AMC won the war: It sued the city over the decision and was awarded many millions of tax dollars in a judgment. So Dallas taxpayers must pay for their racist attitudes, but it doesn't stop them.

Look at what's going on now in Lake Highlands. DART is planning a rail station on its Dallas-to-Garland Blue Line route. The station is to be located on the Northwest Corner of Walnut Hill and White Rock Trail. Anyone familiar with his area realizes the entrance to the station needs to be on White Rock Trail because locating it on Walnut would create a traffic nightmare on that thoroughfare. But, as you can see, the locals are mounting an AMC-like protest against the sensible option because it could mean those kind infiltrating their neighborhoods. Except this time around, the code word is not those, but criminals.